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A terrorist attack a month ago in Toronto, in which 10 people were struck down by a man in a rental van, has brought the term “incel” -- short for “involuntarily celibate” -- to the global stage, but what is an incel and how did the misogynistic, sometimes violent movement begin?

The term “incel” began with a Toronto woman in 1993. The woman, identified only as Alana, told Elle in March 2016 that as a sexually inexperienced college student at Carleton University in Ottawa, she was trying to create a “movement that was open to anybody and everybody.”

She created a website, Alana’s Involuntary Celibacy Project, as a way for single people who were lonely to come together. Eventually, she turned the site over to someone she did not know and abandoned the project.

Alana learned that in February 2015, when she read about Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old self-described “incel” who stabbed and shot to death six people and injured 14 others May 23, 2014, near the University of California’s Santa Barbara campus before taking his own life.

In a video he shot in his BMW shortly before shooting himself, Rodger complained about his social life, saying that he was still a virgin and had “never even kissed a girl.”

A 141-page manifesto Rodger sent to about two dozen friends and acquaintances before he killed himself further detailed his deep hatred of women, whose rejection he blamed for his predicament, the BBC reported. In the document, he called himself an “ideal magnificent gentleman” and said he could not understand why women did not want him.

Men who subscribe to the incel movement have taken Rodger as a sort of folk hero. Alexandre Bissonnette, who killed six people and wounded 19 more at a Quebec City mosque on Jan. 29, 2017, searched the web for information about Rodger less than 24 hours before opening fire, The Globe and Mail reported.

Toronto police officials also confirmed that Minassian posted a message on Facebook in which he praised Rodger just minutes before he is accused of driving his rented van into the crowd of pedestrians in Toronto.

“As has been reported in the media, the accused is believed to have posted a cryptic public message on Facebook minutes before he began driving the rented van southbound on Yonge Street and onto the crowded sidewalks,” Toronto police Detective Sgt. Graham Gibson said shortly after the tragedy. “He drove, deliberately striking pedestrians on the sidewalk and roadway with his vehicle.”

Minassian, a failed Canadian military recruit who called himself “Private (Recruit) Minassian Infantry 00010” in the Facebook post, wrote that he wished to speak to “Sgt. 4chan.” The website 4chan, which has been linked to a variety of internet subcultures, is believed to be where Minassian became radicalized, New York magazine reported.

He also stated in the post that ‘the Incel Rebellion has already begun.”

“We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys!” the post stated, according to the BBC. “All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!”

David Futrelle, a writer and blogger who explores misogyny on the internet, described incels as seeing “Chads” as stereotypically attractive man, or Ken dolls, and “Stacys” as the Barbies to those Kens.

“This all may seem a bit ridiculous, but it's no exaggeration,” Futrelle told Glamour magazine in April. “This is how they think. I'm convinced that they literally visualize Chads as characters in ‘80s teen flicks.”

Futrelle said a lot of the incels he’s run across are young and that he believes their belief system stems from adolescent insecurities and anger over being rejected by girls in their youth.

“Instead of growing out of this, they turn it into a lifestyle,” Futrelle said.

The rate of men who are unmarried and have reported not having sex in the past year has increased over the past several years -- but it is not because the self-titled incels are being shunned, the institute reported. Instead, it is driven by the declining marriage rate, which for men between ages 22 and 35 is at its lowest rate since at least 1880, the year for which data first became available.

Incel movement’s basis in history

The acts of violence allegedly perpetrated by Minassian and Rodger are not the first linked to the misogynistic ideals behind the incel movement. In 1989, 14 female students were shot to death and another 13 injured at École Polytechnique, an engineering school in Montreal.

The killer, Marc Lépine, blamed feminism for the ills of his life, including his rejection from the school where he found his victims, The Guardian reported. Lépine, who armed himself with a rifle and a knife, previously told a shop owner he was hunting “small game,” the newspaper said.

Melissa J. Gismondi wrote for the Post that the incel movement is fairly new, but is based in the ancient history of patriarchal societies that have long given men free reign over women’s bodies. Gismondi, a historian in North American history, explained that women, for the majority of American history, were bound in more than name to their husbands.

Crimes against a woman, including rape, were seen as crimes against the husband. If a slave-owner raped a slave and got her pregnant, that child also became his property.

It was 1979 before marital rape became a crime in the United States, the Post reported. It was not until 1993 that it became a crime in all 50 states.

President Donald Trump’s embattled personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, tried as recently as 2015 to deflect old rape accusations against Trump by saying husbands could not rape their wives. Cohen’s remarks were in response to the then-presidential candidate’s sexual misconduct controversy, during which there was a resurfacing of allegations made by Ivana Trump in the 1990s, in which she said that Trump raped her while they were married.

Cohen later apologized.

The belief that men are owed sex from women helped form the basis of today’s incel movement, experts say.

A Reddit incel subgroup that boasted 40,000 members was shut down in November after several posts promoted rape and other violence against women, USA Today reported. Keegan Kankes, a senior intelligence analyst with hate group watchdog the Southern Poverty Law Center, told the newspaper in April that misogyny is often a precursor to other, more radical extremism.

“There is a willingness in these communities to say horrible things -- women should be raped, women should be killed,” Hankes said. “In these communities, the rhetoric is among the worst that I see online.”

“There’s absolutely no doubt that we will find new stuff. And that’s very exciting,” Gemmell told the BBC.

“While the prospect of looking for evidence of the Loch Ness monster is the hook to this project, there is an extraordinary amount of new knowledge that we will gain from the work about organisms that inhabit Loch Ness - the UK’s largest freshwater body,” Gemmell explained.

The technique is called eDNA and has been used for tracking marine life, Reuters reported.

The myth of Nessie dates back to the 6th century when Irish monk St. Columba banished a “water beast” to the River Ness, Reuters reported. In 1934, the famous photo dubbed the “surgeon’s photo” was taken. The photo was found to be a hoax six decades later when it was discovered that the creature was, in fact, a toy submarine with a sea monster model attacked.

In 2003, the BBC financed a research project that mapped the entire lake using 600 sonar beams, Reuters reported.

The results of the latest study are expected to be released in January.

Update 10:04 a.m. EDT Monday: ﻿The British royal family on Monday released three official photos snapped by photographer Alexi Lubomirski from Markle and Prince Harry’s wedding day.

﻿Update 6:21 a.m. EDT Sunday: The British royal family took to Twitter late Saturday to congratulate Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and thank their guests for attending their wedding.

“Thank you to everyone who came to Windsor and those who followed from around the UK, the Commonwealth, and the world today,” the tweet said. “Congratulations once again to the newly-married Duke and Duchess of Sussex.”

Update 8:39 p.m. EDT: The couple drove to their reception in style. Prince Harry sat behind the wheel of a 1968 Jaguar E-Type with bride Meghan Markle in the passenger seat. The couple had changed from their wedding attire to attend the evening reception at Frogmore House.

The car, which had been converted to electric power, had license number E190518, their wedding date, according to Metro.

Update 1:51 p.m. EDT: Meghan Markle’s dad, Thomas, told TMZ that he hopes his relatives “will just shut up about everything” on Saturday after his daughter and Prince Harry exchanged vows in England on Saturday.

Earlier Saturday, the celebrity news site reported that Thomas Markle watched his daughter get hitched from his hospital bed after he had to undergo heart surgery earlier this week. He said he will “always regret” not being able to attend.

"When you watch your child get married, every thought goes through your mind, every memory from the first day she was born, the first time I held her," Thomas Markle told TMZ. "Now I pray that Harry and Meghan can go on a nice honeymoon and rest and relax, and all of my relatives will just shut up about everything."

Update 1:05 p.m. EDT: Saturday’s wedding included a performance from a gospel choir, an unusual choice for a royal wedding that was apparently spurred by Prince Charles.

Karen Gibson, the leader of the Kingdom Choir that performed for Markle and Prince Harry’s wedding Saturday, told The Guardian that the choir was first contacted by representatives of Clarence House, Prince Charles’ home.

“I understand that Prince Charles really likes gospel music,” she said. “The couple were very intentional about what they wanted sung and how they wanted it sung, but the actual idea came from Prince Charles.”

She told The Guardian that the variety of music played Saturday, which also included a performance by 19-year-old cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, was “reflective of what society looks like today.

“We live in a multi-cultural society, so we had classical music, contemporary classical music as well as gospel music, because you’ve got many cultures living here,” she said.

Update 12:42 p.m. EDT: Kensington Palace officials announced Saturday that Markle planned to speak at a lunchtime reception following her marriage to Prince Harry earlier in the day, but The Guardian reported she would actually be speaking at a second, evening reception.

Kensington Palace officials said earlier Saturday that Prince Harry asked John to perform and that the artist agreed “in recognition of the close connection he has with Prince Harry and his family.”

Update 11:35 a.m. EDT: Kensington Palace has suggested a donation to charity rather than buying a gift for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Update 9:50 a.m. EDT: Markle’s father, Thomas Markle, was supposed to walk his daughter down the aisle Saturday, but he changed his plans after suffering a heart attack and while facing criticism for posing for paparazzi photos.

The couple’s wedding cake, made using elderflower syrup created from the elderflower trees at the queen’s Sandringham House, will be served at the reception. The sponge cake features an Amalfi lemon curd and elderflower buttercream filling and is topped with Swiss meringue buttercream and 150 fresh flowers.

Update 8:45 a.m. EDT: The royal family shared congratulations Saturday for Prince Harry and Markle after the pair wed Saturday.

Officials shared several videos of Saturday’s ceremony on social media:

Update 8:09 a.m. EDT: Prince Harry and Markle have left St. George’s Chapel.

Markle arrived to a fanfare and walked down the aisle accompanied part of the way by Prince Charles, and by 10 young page boys and bridesmaids. The children include 4-year-old Prince George and 3-year-old Princess Charlotte, children of Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge.

Update 7:01 a.m. EDT: Markle has arrived at St. George’s Church.

Update 6:58 a.m. EDT: More members of the royal family have arrived at the church.

Update 6:41 a.m. EDT: Prince Harry has arrived at St. George’s Chapel along with his brother, Prince William.

William, who was married to commoner Kate Middleton at a ceremony in 2011, is carrying his brother's rings. Saturday's ceremony is supposed to last about an hour.

Update 6:23 a.m. EDT: Markle has left her hotel for St. George’s Chapel.

﻿Update 5:45 a.m. EDT: Famous guests who have already arrived for Prince Harry and Markle’s wedding include actor George Clooney and his wife, attorney Amal Clooney, singer James Blunt, Oprah Winfrey, actor Idris Elba and the Beckam family.

The stars are among celebrities, royalty, athletes and family friends in the 600-strong congregation invited to St. George's Chapel in Windsor.

Kensington Palace officials announced Saturday morning that Markle and Prince Harry’s wedding rings were made by Cleave and Company. Markle’s is made of Welsh gold while the prince’s will be made of a platinum band with a textured finish.

﻿Original report: Queen Elizabeth II conferred the titles of Duke and Duchess of Sussex on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on the morning of the royal wedding.

According to the Guardian, a beagle named Guy was in a Kentucky kill shelter until Ontario-based A Dog's Dream Rescue saved him and offered him for adoption at a 2015 event in Canada. That's where he met his new owner, Markle, who went on to marry Britain's Prince Harry on Saturday.

"In honor of the royal wedding, use your 'royal wedding guest name' this week. Start with either 'Lord' or 'Lady' – your first name is one of your grandparents' names. Your surname is the name of your first pet, then 'of' followed by the name of the street you grew up on."

"If they’re asking you what could be security-rated questions like ‘What’s your mother’s maiden name?' – things that you would get asked that would allow you to perhaps reset a password, login to a system through some alternative approach – they could be taking that information and be attempting to hack into systems with that," Dave Hatter, WXIX's technology expert, told the TV station.

A computer security expert identified as Snow echoed the sentiment in a message to HuffPost, saying the answers "could be used to gain access to accounts (social media, banking, work email, etc) with potential for identity theft."

On the morning of the royal wedding Queen Elizabeth II conferred the titles of Duke and Duchess of Sussex on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, CNN reported.

Harry will hold several titles: His Royal Highness The Duke of Sussex, Earl of Dumbarton and Baron Kilkeel. Markle will be known as Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Sussex.

Titles are decided by the Queen when a relative either comes of age or gets married, CNN reported. The queen can choose from five titles for a man, CNN reported -- duke, marquess, earl, viscount or baron. For a woman, the choices are duchess, marchioness, countess, viscountess and baroness.

The titles of duke and duchess are the highest titles among the five possibilities.

It has been 175 years since a man held the title of Duke of Sussex. That was Prince Augustus Frederick, who was the sixth son and ninth child of George III, the BBC reported. He died in 1843 at age 70.